Roots of terrorism

I understand that a ‘Symposium on Roots of Terrorism’ was held in WashingtonDC on 28-29 April. It was sponsored and organized by America Truth Forum. A large number of prominent and highly-placed intellectuals and experts on Islamic studies attended the symposium. Many of them were celebrities and known personalities on national TV and radio stations. A forceful Indian and Hindu view point was presented by Dr Babu Suseelan, a psychologist and Director of Addiction Research Institute, Pennsylvania and board member of Indian American Intellectuals Forum (IAIF) on that occasion.

What is very gratifying to note is that more than 375 intellectuals and US opinion makers, many of them Jewish and Christian Americans, took an active part in the Symposium. To quote the words of Narain Kataria in this context: ‘This was a rare occasion for IAIF members to interact with American mainstream personalities and exchange the Indian viewpoint openly on the menace of terrorism. It was, probably, for the first time that the presence and scholarship of Hindu Americans was recognized and appreciated by renowned global experts on counter-terrorism’.

Dr Babu Suseelan insisted that it was absolutely essential for the world to understand the deadly ideology that successfully transforms the simple human beings into deadly suicide bombers and terrorists. He said that we cannot deal with the problem of terrorism until and unless we completely comprehend the ideology which extols the virtues of killing and preaches hate, incites violence and enjoins on its followers to instill terror in the hearts of those who do not believe in Allah (8:12); insists on its followers to make a war on unbelievers who dwell around them (9:123); compels its followers to be harsh to unbelievers; tells them that ultimate abode of infidels is Hell, directs them to lay hold on infidels; bind them; burn them in the fire of Hell, then, fasten them with a chain seventy cubits long. The only fault of infidel was that he did not believe in Allah, the Most High.

Jihad, fundamentally, is a do or die doctrine of permanent warfare. Jihad, Holy War and Terrorism are all interchangeable words in all contexts and all situations relating to so called infidels or non-believers or what Islam calls Kafirs. He pointed out that Muslims have been in a state of perpetual war wherever they live, be it Afghanistan or Iraq, Chechnya or Sudan, Kashmir or Thailand, Indonesia or Bangladesh, Philippine or Spain, USA, UK, or India. Dr Prithipal, Professor of Comparative Religion, University of Alberta, Canada has categorically observed: ‘Muslims will only live as an oppressive majority and in turbulent minority’. This is because of the supremacy and paramountcy of the Islamic Jihad.

Surveying the History of India, Dr Suseelan pointed out that the Afghanistan was once Hindu and a part of the original India of that time. In 1947, Pakistan too was forcibly carved out of the Indian Territory by Islamists. Now, feverish efforts are on by all Islamic nations to wrest the Indian Kashmir from the Hindu India. Threats of violence, loot, murder and rape of Hindu people all familiar tools of terrorism have become a routine thing in the Indian Kashmir today.

Many people are under the mistaken impression that terrorism in the world began on 11 September, 2001. This assumption is based on total ignorance of the known facts of history. Dr Suseelan added: ‘India has been experiencing terrorism for hundreds of years. Even the so-called Moghul King Akbar-the-Great had killed 30,000 to 40,000 innocent Hindus in one day’. He then referred to 14,000 young Hindu girls who had to immolate themselves in fire in a city named Chittor in Rajasthan in India when Hindu soldiers were not able to defend the honour of their womenfolk against the barbarian Islamic forces. 1,00,000 Hindu prisoners in one day were put to death by Timur-the-Terrible.

The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels of India ever since the Arab conquest of Sind in 712 AD.

To quote Dr Suseelan in this context: ‘The whole world knows that six million Jewish people were murdered by Nazis. It is also known that 1.2 million Armenians were butchered by Turkish Muslims. But nobody knows about the Hindu Holocaust. There are various estimates on how many million Hindus have been slaughtered by Islamic invaders inspired by holy Quran. Prof Bill French of the Centre for the Study of Political Islam, Tennessee, who has conducted an in-depth research on the subject, told me that Muslims have killed 120 million human beings around the globe (including 40 million Hindus in India alone). Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch says that in sheer numbers, no group of people has suffered from Islam like the Hindus. He further said that it is amazing how few Americans and British of Indian origin seem to know the history of their own ancestors. Prof K S Lal writes that 60 to 70 million Hindus were murdered by Muslim rulers’.

In conclusion, Dr Suseelan said that Hindus and Hinduism are under siege in India. At present the Muslim population in India is rising by leaps and bounds. There are 162 million Muslims living in Pakistan. There are approximately 150 to 160 million Muslims in India; Bangladesh has another 147 million Muslims. Roughly one-third of the world Muslim population lives in the Indian sub-continent. This is a very frightening scenario for India. Enlightened members of the audience in the high-profile Symposium were horrified and shocked by the detailed and documented information provided by Dr Suseelan.

Returning to the Indian context, since 1989, more than 13500 civilians and 5300 security personnel have been killed by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir. By contrast, over the same period, till December 2004, just 62 persons have been indicted for terrorism in the State. Our Courts of Law don’t and won’t deliver. When someone at the greatest risk to his life acts to save the country, a shriek is sent up, Human Rights Violation.

During the last 20 years about 64,000 have been killed in terrorist related violence within the territory of India. By the end of 2004, 220 districts, covering 40 to 45 per cent of the country’s territory had come to be affected by insurgencies of one kind or another. K.P.S. Gill has given three reasons for these killings: i) Islamic fundamentalism; ii) Left wing extremism; and iii) Ethnic Fundamentalisms in the North East. Arun Shourie has rightly observed that it is more or less taboo to talk about the first. The second is explained away in fashionable circles as the counter to State-terrorism as a direct consequence of Land Reforms not having been implemented. The third is lauded as ‘The rise of consciousness among indigenous people’.

India is a State in denial, a State which has withered away for good or for evil.

Against this crumbling edifice of national security situation, it is shocking to see our pusillanimous Prime Minister offering on bended knees with supplication an offer of a new deal to the terrorists and quislings of Kashmir today. The same Prime Minister treats the striking students of IITs and Medical Colleges as quislings, ably assisted by the Human Resources Destruction (HRD) Minister and a known page boy of the Nehru family. The Hindu victims of Islamic terrorism in Kashmir are being treated like disposable consumables in the crucible of an artificially sponsored peace process founded on a superstructure of sanctimonious humbug. We have a weak government; we have a weaker economy; we have puny men at the highest levels of governance with contempt for our own nation and her people. Is this a sign of our tolerant culture? Is it a sign of our being a democracy? Is it a sign of confidence and strength? Or is it a sign of our being confused, of our having been fed guilt, and of our having internalised it?

It is in this context I am reminded of the strong stand taken by Deng Xiaoping, President of China when the Western nations spoke about violation of human rights in China, after the suppression of the riots in Tiananmen. Deng Xiaoping said that the troubles had been executed by ‘so called democrats’ who were in fact the scum of the Chinese nation. Deng Xiaoping gave a warning as follows: This turmoil has been a lesson for us. We are more keenly aware that first priority should always be given to national sovereignty and security. Some Western countries, on the pretext that China has an unsatisfactory human rights record and an irrational and illegitimate socialist system, attempt to jeopardize our national sovereignty. Countries that play power politics are not qualified to talk about human rights. How many people’s human rights have they violated throughout the world!… They are not the United Nations. What grounds have they for interfering in the internal affairs of China? Who gave them power to do that? The Chinese people will never accept any action that violates norms of international relations, and they will never yield to outside pressure.

One million of our so-called Nethas cannot equal one Deng Xiaoping. When are we going to get tall leaders with judgement, courage, vision and above all political integrity?